Well, That was Short

So, here I am sitting in the van on my way to San Diego, happily chit-chatting with several of the other bikes. We’re having a great time and we’re all looking forward to our humans arriving on Friday to take us out for a ride (after all, comfy as the van is, the happy place for a bike is on the road, not in a van).

Anyway, as happy as I was, I suddenly learned that as soon as we reach San Diego, I’m going into a cardboard box and getting shipped back to Milwaukee. WTF?!?!?! My human is out of service.

Turns out Galanas and Blue took the humans out for an easy spin on Sunday. Emphasis on “easy.” That meant flat bike trails, not the hilly road route the human and I normally take. Should have been a no brainer, but…as Galanas and the human crossed a bridge on the bike trail, Blue threw Edwin’s human and then Galanas lost his footing and threw my human. Both of the humans went down.

Now, Galanas is a bit more of a prima dona than me (would that be primo don?), but he’s still a steady bike. So, what gives? Apparently, shortly after the humans went down, a runner came by, stepped onto the bridge and slipped a little. The surface of the bridge was covered with a very slippery moss.

Anyway, Edwin’s human was fine. Just a little banged up so they went home to get the car. My human couldn’t walk, let alone ride, maybe a broken hip. So while they waited for Edwin’s human to get back, my human hobbled to the nearest street using Galanas as a crutch (oh, the indignity of a bicycle becoming a crutch — what we do in the service of our humans).

So, off to the emergency room they went. Turns out it wasn’t the hip that was broken, but the pelvis that broke during the fall. The human will be limited to “driving” crutches for the next couple of weeks while the fracture heals. So, no Southern Transcontinental for me! Bummer.

We were ready, too. We’d addressed all the issues we’d had last time with better training — focusing on longer, back-to-back weekend rides interspersed with faster, shorter weekends, making sure we didn’t over train, and we even addressed and worked on desert hydration (gotta keep up the salt). Heck, the human was even riding into work overdressed to try to convince the body that getting over-temped was “normal.”

But, now that I’m approaching San Diego, it is time to get back in a box (sigh), head home and put the human back together again. Because if the human thinks this is the last attempt, the human has another thing coming.

A real disappointment, but I think a fractured pelvis is preferred over a broken hip. Sadly, you will probably have to live a few days inside the box after arriving home, as your human won’t feel like doing much more than opening the box and making sure you are ok in there. Your sunny yellow paint will help cheer her up as she heals.